Period 1: 1491–1607

Before 1607, North and South America were not empty land waiting to be discovered. Hundreds of distinct Native societies had built trade networks, agricultural systems, political structures, and cosmologies across the continent. When Europeans arrived, they brought disease, competing imperial ambitions, and economic systems that reorganized labor through force. The Columbian Exchange moved crops, animals, and pathogens across the Atlantic in ways that permanently altered population, land use, and power on both sides. This unit argues that the conditions of contact, shaped everything that follows in American history.

4–6% of exam